


Anything You've Done

by AidaRonan



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes's Metal Arm, Domestic Fluff, Everything is Beautiful and Nothing Hurts, Fluff, M/M, Painting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-07
Updated: 2019-09-07
Packaged: 2020-10-11 17:55:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20550293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AidaRonan/pseuds/AidaRonan
Summary: "I want it to be different," Bucky said."So we'll make it different."





	Anything You've Done

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [CapSeptender challenge.](https://twitter.com/BiStarBucky/status/1159179932553175043?s=20)

It started with quiet words muttered in the dark, the blueish glow of the television the only light in the apartment save the orangey aura of the city seeping in through the windows.

“I want it to be different,” Bucky said, curled so tightly in Steve’s arms that it felt like they were one being—the Ouroboros circling on forever.

Steve ran his thumbs across the plates of the arm and felt Bucky shudder. He still had feeling in it. The way he told it, it was a lot like having your arm under thick winter layers. If someone touched you, you still felt it, just less.

“Then we’ll make it different,” Steve said, lips brushing against Bucky’s temple when he talked. “We’ll make it whatever you want.”

In the morning, Steve cleaned the craft store out of model car paint. He bought at least two of every color he could get, lining them up on the coffee table next to several paintbrushes. Bucky was still asleep when he finished, so Steve popped across the street to the bakery for breakfast sandwiches, pastries, and those sugary coffee drinks Bucky loved so much—the ones loaded down with whipped cream and drizzled caramel.

Steve had just finished tearing into a blueberries-n-cream danish when he heard the sounds of Bucky stirring in their bedroom.

“Mffph.” Bucky emerged in pale pink cotton pajama shorts and a loose white tank, and it never failed that every single morning, when Steve first laid eyes on him, something in his own chest stuttered to a halt and melted into goo. Bucky was beautiful, the yellowy glow of morning pulling out the copper tones hidden in his dark hair. This morning, like all mornings, it stuck up at odd angles, and as Steve watched Bucky rub the sleep from his eyes with one hand, he couldn’t help the grin that spread across his face. Sometimes he thought his cheeks might split apart from happiness.

“Morning. I got breakfast,” Steve said, hopping up and pressing the still-warm coffee cup into Bucky’s hand. Bucky immediately took several sips, then let out a happy sigh.

“You’re a saint, Stevie,” he said, a small line of cream gathered on his Cupid’s bow. Steve kissed it away.

“I got something else too,” Steve said, nodding toward the living room where the array of paints were easily visible. Bucky stared at them for a long moment, nodded to himself, and then sat down in Steve’s lap to eat his breakfast.

“Thank you,” he said softly, breaking apart an apple fritter.

“Anything, Buck,” Steve said, brushing his lips across the nape of Bucky’s neck. “Anything I’ve done for you, you’d do the same for me. If you haven’t already.”

There was no response to that save Bucky grabbing his wrist and squeezing it briefly. They ate the rest of their breakfast in a calm, comfortable silence, Steve loosely wrapping his arms around Bucky’s middle while he waited for him to finish.

“Do you know what you want?” Steve asked, patting the floor next to the coffee table. Bucky slid down gracefully, his legs folding easily beneath him. He stared at the paints for a really long time, and Steve let him, happy to sit there all day if that’s how long he needed.

Finally, Bucky answered.

“Home, Steve. I want home.”

So Steve gave him home—jar after jar, brush after brush. He dipped his paintbrush into black, then tan, then blue, using the colors to paint the Brooklyn Bridge against a bright afternoon sky. That sky faded into night at the edges, and Steve speckled it with milky starlight. A nod to a peaceful night during the war when they’d snuck away and held each other close under the waning moon.

He painted apples for the pies Winnie used to make every Sunday, little white and yellow daisies for the sundress Becca had worn as a girl, and a tobacco pipe for Bucky’s father.

A wolf calling to the moon. Ballet shoes. A falcon. 

He covered Bucky’s palm in their love and moved to the top of his hand when he ran out of room. Oak leaves and cherry blossoms for all the little bits and bobs Bucky had brought him home so he could practice his art, a baseball because the Dodgers belonged to them as much as they belonged to each other. An alley cat because that’s what Bucky had always called him. An old radio bursting with music, because when no one was watching, they’d held each other close and swayed.

They still did.

It took all day minus a brief pause for lunch, but by the time the sun started to fade away, Steve was finishing up Bucky’s fingertips, all of them covered in blue for the seashore by Coney Island.

“I hope that’s what you had in mind,” Steve said, blowing softly across Bucky’s metallic knuckles.

Bucky turned his arm over and over, craning his neck to see his outer bicep properly. With a soft sigh, he pressed his forehead against Steve’s, nuzzling against him and squeezing his forearm with his other hand.

“Don’t you have markers?” Bucky asked, his voice hoarse. “The ones from when Sam brought his nephews.”

Steve moved to the desk in the corner, opening and shutting one of the drawers.

“These?” He held up a 12-pack of plain washable Crayola markers, and Bucky reached out his hand.

“Sit,” he said, and Steve sat, letting Bucky tug his shirt up over his head and toss it onto the couch.

“Anything you’ve done for me, I’d do for you, right?” Bucky asked, giving Steve a lopsided smile, and then he pressed a marker to Steve’s skin and started to draw.

The history books occasionally remembered that Steve Rogers was an artist. They hardly ever remembered that Bucky Barnes was too.

He went for a more sketch-like style with the markers than Steve had with the paints. Their old tenement building took shape first, a sunset behind it bathing it in orange and gold. The Brooklyn Bridge featured in Bucky’s art as well, the bricks of the tenement fading into its facade, its wires giving way to a fire escape and two boys hinted at in shadows. A lily for Steve’s mother, a rose for Bucky’s, and a little stuffed doll for Becca. He added symbols for the Howlies and the Avengers, including a running shoe with wings for Sam.

Like Steve had, he marked Steve’s hand up with reminders of who they were to each other, who they had always been to each other. A malt with two straws because no one had really questioned two poor fellas from Brooklyn sharing one so long as they’d passed it back and forth. A trash can lid because Steve had always been an idiot. An orange slice that reminded Steve of kisses that had tasted like citrus and forever.

It was messy, the watery ink from the markers spreading across the tiny lines and fissures of Steve’s skin. But it was beautiful too, a reminder that home can be two places. Or one place during two times. That home can be the people who love you even after those people are gone.

That home can be a man with gray-blue eyes and a smile as bright as the midday sun.

“Thank you,” Steve said, his eyes wet when he traced over the petals of the lily.

“Hold on. I’m not done,” Bucky said, and he chewed on his bottom lip while he contemplated the markers. With a glance at his artwork so far, he chose black, and on Steve’s ring finger, he used it to draw a thick, dark band. “Steve, I…” He put the marker down, picked up the silver paint, and held it out toward him.

Steve’s eyes flitted between it and the minuscule furrow of Bucky’s brow—the smallest gathering of wrinkles on Bucky’s otherwise smooth forehead. Steve wanted to press his lips there and never take them away.

“Stevie, I’m asking,” Bucky said, glancing at the paint.

Steve took it with his pulse hammering in his throat.

“I'm answering.” And with careful strokes, Steve painted a silver band across sand and sea.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/BiStarBucky).


End file.
